Sihem Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Thomas Paris and Sylvain Bureau
The purpose of this paper is to enrich our understanding of entrepreneurs’ daily deeds, tasks and activities. The research investigates the ways in which entrepreneurs seize…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to enrich our understanding of entrepreneurs’ daily deeds, tasks and activities. The research investigates the ways in which entrepreneurs seize opportunities and gain knowledge from the start to the expansion of their ventures.
Design/methodology/approach
Two case studies were developed based on a longitudinal fine-grained analysis of two ventures over two years. Entrepreneurs’ success and learning were modeled in line with grounded theory methodology. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources in the form of semi-structured interviews and archival documentation.
Findings
The authors develop an original conceptual framework that consists of ten entrepreneurial learning opportunities and four knowledge development modes. There are ten generic types of actions that entrepreneurs take. There are then four distinctive ways to transform these experiences into knowledge. The model is assessed in absolute terms and relatively to existing taxonomies.
Research limitations/implications
The findings question the premises on which entrepreneurial learning research traditionally relies. Opportunities can be open-ended rather than purely instrumental. Similarly, knowledge can be emerging as much as it can be espoused. This opens-up space for further research.
Practical implications
For practitioners, the findings suggest new ways for making sense of the daily experience of their entrepreneurial endeavor. The learning modes suggested can be used by coaches and mentors when helping entrepreneurs in their venture.
Originality/value
The research provides empirical evidence of what entrepreneurs do. This may help cast traditional debates about what there is to do (logical necessity) and what there is to know (a priori knowledge) in a new light.
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Keywords
Sihem Ben Mahmoud‐Jouini and Sylvain Lenfle
The platform strategy adopted by firms in a multi‐project context reduces lead‐time and development cost, enhances reliability, allows mass customization and increases…
Abstract
Purpose
The platform strategy adopted by firms in a multi‐project context reduces lead‐time and development cost, enhances reliability, allows mass customization and increases manufacturing flexibility. While the major challenges of this strategy have been highlighted, the evolution of the platform and its management during its lifecycle is under studied. The paper address this missing point by considering the sustainability of the platform during its life cycle.
Design/methodology/approach
For that purpose, the paper has carried out a field methodology research at a car manufacturer six years after the successful setting of the platform strategy. It analyzes at a fine‐grained level the development of a second generation product on this existing platform.
Findings
Using a model that traces the design decisions taken during this development, it has identified that, in order to reuse the platform over two generations, the engineers implicitly apply, besides the design rules that correspond to the very definition of platform strategy as presented in the literature such as the carry‐over and the lean design, a learning routine that challenges these rules. It designates this routine by “smart reuse” because it enables the reuse of the platform from one generation to another. It highlights the interplay between the products and the platform that co‐evolve by pointing out the reciprocal prescription relationships. This co‐evolution operates through two levels: between the product planning and the platform on one hand and the product development and the platform on the other.
Practical implications
The paper has several implications, such as the central role of the platform director in the platform reuse and the platform architecture, mainly its modularity, and its impact on the platform progressive renewal. This research reveals ideas that need to be validated and tested through other methods and in other industrial contexts.
Originality/value
The paper offers insights into platform‐re‐use, focusing on the automotive industry.
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Keywords
The last few decades have seen the rapid emergence of two transformative streams in large firms. The first is the development of project management, aimed at improving the…
Abstract
Purpose
The last few decades have seen the rapid emergence of two transformative streams in large firms. The first is the development of project management, aimed at improving the performance of innovation management, while the second, the internationalization of innovation organizations and processes in response to strategies of redeployment toward emerging countries. Both streams have been closely analyzed in the fields of project management and international management, respectively. However, the links between the two have been less studied. The purpose of this paper is to consider the hypothesis that a firm’s projectification might have an important impact on its pattern of internationalization in innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
First, we present the models of internationalization of innovation processes used in the multinational corporation literature. This field essentially focuses on the components of permanent organizations: global internationalization strategy and legacy, R&D footprint, characterization of local subsidiaries and the role of central head offices. Projects figure only as a context in which those elements operate, not as a structuring variable of the global innovation process pattern. The authors challenge this view by exploring whether the specificities of the firm’s projectification pattern can influence how it builds its global innovation process. The paper is based on a longitudinal case where the authors analyze the organizational transition within the Renault group, an emblematic case of a multinational that implemented a spectacular internationalization transition in the 2000s.
Findings
Our results demonstrate project organizing’s major impact on the internationalization patterns of innovation processes within the firm. They show how the deployment of a polycentric innovation footprint has been the consequence of a specific projectification transition, giving the project and program functions the autonomy to transgress centralized product development norms to adapt their project to the local environment; use the initial breakthrough project as the foundation for a new and specific global product development network through a lineage logic; and sustain this innovation global network as a permanent process of the firm.
Research limitations/implications
The paper demonstrates the importance of the organization’s projectification characteristics as an important vector for successfully implementing the most advanced internationalization strategies (i.e. reverse innovation) and innovation processes models (i.e. integrated networks).
Practical implications
The paper characterizes project management related conditions that can govern the success of innovation strategies in high-growth emerging countries: the autonomy and empowerment of project functions; colocation and integration of teams; existence of a program function; and HR policies capable of supporting lineage management and project-to-project learning processes.
Originality/value
Bridging project management literature with multinational management literature. Demonstrate the key impact of projectification on internationalization pattern of the firm. Longitudinal analysis of a firm internationalization transition on a ten-year period.